There is still no such thing as a safe pit bull

by Beth Clifton

Exhibiting the dead-game doggedness that helps to make pit bulls themselves intractably dangerous, Miami Coalition Against Breed-Specific Legislation founder/director Dahlia Canes has circled back around to re-grip and attack again, just a year after she failed in a stealth attempt to repeal the county pit bull ban in effect since 1989, and five years after Miami-Dade voters overwhelmingly affirmed the ban.

Victim Syl Hatfield

Lawsuit filed five days after pit bulls nearly killed a Miami-Dade senior citizen

This time Canes’ instrument is a lawsuit filed in federal court on October 11, 2017. This was five days after two pit bulls––one of them misleadingly called “an American bulldog”––nearly killed Palmetto Bay resident Syl Hatfield, 75, during her morning walk.

Summarized Douglas Hanks of the Miami Herald, “The Miami Coalition Against Breed Specific Legislation and [co-plaintiff] Blues for Vets claim Miami-Dade’s rule violates the U.S. Constitution by unfairly depriving pit bull owners of property — their dogs. By saying one breed of dog is illegal while the rest are authorized, Miami-Dade’s ban also violates pit bull owners’ right to due process, according to the suit.”

Running up the cost of enforcement

Noted Hanks, “Courts have generally upheld laws banning pit bulls, provided the government can prove the restrictions protect public safety.” Which the Miami-Dade ordinance did quite effectively until, after the 2012 vote, Miami-Dade Animal Services chief of shelter operations and enforcement Kathleen Labrada quit enforcing the ordinance to the letter, instead finding ways to exempt dogs under common names for pit bull variants.

The likelihood of losing will not stop the usual well-funded coterie of pit bull advocates from trying to run the cost of enforcing the Miami-Dade pit bull ordinance up so high that the county legislature gives in and repeals it, regardless of the cost in human and animal lives and security.

I take a personal interest in this case and issue, from my perspective as a former Miami Beach police officer, former pit bull rescuer (see Why pit bulls will break your heart), staunch advocate for public safety, and resident of Miami-Dade county for most of my life.

Left: Bruno A. BarreiroRight: Sally Heyman

Miami-Dade legislators Bruno A. Barreiro and Sally Heyman in 2016 quietly introduced their repeal bill just four years after county voters in August 2012 upheld the county’s longstanding, well-grounded ordinance at by almost a two-to-one margin.

Pit bull advocates from all over the U.S. threw money and noise into the repeal campaign, but lost to sanity and public safety even though they faced no organized opposition.

Bloody battle

Across the U.S. and around the world a bloody battle is emerging between monied pit bull advocates and those of us who believe the public and other animals have a right to walk in our own neighborhoods and feel personally secure and safe from dangerous dogs.

Dahlia Canes (left) and her Facebook posting promoting “fake news” pit bull story, which she left up even after Mike Fry (lower right) alerted Canes that it was fake.

The blood, it must be noted, is shed mostly by the 30-40 humans per year who are killed by pit bulls, the 600 to 700 who are disfigured by pit bulls, the tens of thousands of others who are bitten by pit bulls, and the 40,000 or more other pets, livestock, and wild animals who are killed each year by pit bulls running amok.

In Miami-Dade alone, pit bulls have killed three people in the past four years: Javon Dade Jr., age four; Carmen Reigada, 91; and Nyjah Espinosa, days short of her second birthday.

Canes herself on June 2, 2017 enthusiastically announced a fourth alleged pit bull fatality that never happened––because the fictitious report from which she took her information in that instance portrayed the pit bull killing as heroic.

Miami-Dade Animal Services disregards the law

Sadly, the dogs who killed those three victims were each intentionally mislabeled by Miami-Dade Animal Services chief of shelter operations and enforcement Kathleen Labrada as breeds not covered by the 1989 pit bull ban, despite clear language in the ordinance stipulating that it applies to any dog of characteristics which “substantially conform” to several recognized definitions of “pit bull.”

Mislabeling these killer dogs, I believe, disingenuously misled the public in two ways.

First, the deaths of Dade, Reigada, and Espinosa made clear that Miami-Dade Animal Services had not been enforcing the pit bull ban, as the department was mandated and paid to do.

Beth Clifton as pit bull rescuer.

Second, not enforcing the pit bull ban allowed Miami-Dade Animal Services to boast of reducing shelter intake and shelter killing, boosting their public image at cost to public safety.

Voters spoke in 2012

Beth Clifton with one of the pit bulls for whom she was a rescue driver.

Likewise, at least two Miami-Dade county legislators chose in 2016 to jeopardize the safety and wellbeing of the constituents who elected them by pandering to pit bull owners, a handful of vociferous local advocates who appear to want mainly to be able to rehome pit bulls “rescued” elsewhere within Miami-Dade, and some organizations from outside the county, which have no actual stake in the outcome of the repeal attempt, and hold the safety of Miami-Dade residents to be of little or no importance.

People of Miami-Dade need to be alerted

The good and responsible people of Miami Dade County need urgently to be alerted that there is a militant faction who desire to risk their safety and that of their animals by keeping, breeding, and further distributing a type of dog which has become notorious not only for killing and maiming, but specifically for killing and maiming members of their own households, who constitute about two-thirds of all the human and animal victims.

Beth Clifton as Miami Beach police officer.

Much suffering

I have personally witnessed much bloodshed committed by pit bulls, and much suffering among the victims and survivors of pit bull attacks, including by parents and former pit bull owners who now struggle to live with the knowledge that they ignored repeated warnings and continued to trust and even actively advocate for pit bulls until suddenly it was too late.

Contrary to the myth that pit bulls somehow can be “dog-aggressive” but not “human-aggressive,” pit bulls do not discriminate between children or adults, dogs or cats, horses or goats, or among any other animals. They tear their victims apart limb by limb. There is no such thing as a safe pit bull.

Hue and cry

As a former law enforcement officer, animal control officer, veterinary technician and public safety advocate, and as a former pit bull owner and rescuer, I am sending out this hue and cry not only to the responsible citizens of Miami-Dade County, Florida, but also to everyone else caught up in community debate over breed-specific ordinances: stand up for your right to be safe in your own communities from dogs bred to kill.

Comments

Bravo! In Montréal, the pit advocates are already working aggressively to overturn the new BSL, with the local SPCA leading the charge. For me, how people come down on this issue has become something of a litmus test, of their ability to honestly engage with evidence and arrive at a conclusion that’s consistent with it, and of their willingness to recognize that when rights are in conflict, the more basic right must be accorded a higher priority.

One could take offense at Fevin Smith’s comment, which engages in inappropriate stereotyping and name-calling, and does so, moreover, at the expense of my wife, who in six years as a police officer worked often in minority communities without so much as once using a weapon or becoming involved in fisticuffs, even when apprehending fugitives with violent history. I prefer to believe, however, that Fevin Smith’s remark came out of hurt and anger having nothing to do with anything published here, or done by any person here, and instead take this as an educable moment. Recommended reading for Fevin Smith: A black-and-white issue that the humane community has yet to face.

Sharing to social media, with gratitude. Wondering why the rest of us, our lives, our rights, and our wellbeing just don’t matter at all to the pitbull advocacy community. Read the statistics and ask yourselves!

We can’t blame every Pitt Bull for what others have done, which by the way it’s what’s on the other end of the leash that’s made them that way. It’s like everybody blaming you for what your ancestors back when slavery was in. Should we all blame you for that? For what your ancestors did? Same thing. Idiot.

The issue at hand has nothing whatever to do with “blame,” which as regards dog attacks can only be assigned after the fact of a fatal or disfiguring incident, and everything to do with accurately recognizing the combination of instinctive behavior and physical adaptations that lead to fatal and disfiguring incidents. Unlike humans, who have never been selectively bred for generations to do anything in specific, dogs, including pit bulls, have been bred for centuries to be predisposed toward doing particular things. Herding dogs herd, retrievers instinctively retrieve, pointing dogs instinctively point, hounds instinctively track, and pit bulls instinctively attack other dogs, other animals, and humans. Training can whet the instincts that are already in the dogs at birth, but without the predisposition to do whatever the task in the first place, training a setter to fight would be just as productive for a dogfighter as training a pit bull.

In August 2015 I was mauled by a pit mix I adopted from a shelter. Nine days after bringing him home as a family pet, I sat down and he attacked from behind. I spent eight days in a hospital trauma center, enduring three surgeries and a lengthy recovery. I am permanently disfigured on both legs and missing a chunk of my left forearm. There is no safe pitbull.

Seriously, why would anyone hate a pit bull. They are the most amazing beautiful species. How evil are they there bad dogs theyll kill you and your family.. Please I am so sick of hearing about. Ppl are the problem of this.

Far from hating pit bulls, Beth Clifton was for many years an avid pit bull rescuer and advocate, who was eventually honest enough with herself to recognize the enabling-and-denial aspects of pit bull advocacy, and the extent to which it puts other people and animals in danger. See Why pit bulls will break your heart. Critical to understand is that pit bulls are not a species. Dogs are the species; pit bulls are the outcome of centuries of inbreeding undertaken expressly to create lines of dogs so dangerous to themselves and other beings, even their own mates, that pit bull breeding often must be facilitated by use of a “rape rack” so that the dogs will not kill each other. Indeed “people are the problem,” but the people who first developed a dog line to kill Native Americans, escaped slaves, and other animals have been dead for many generations, while the traits they emphasized have been crossed and re-crossed to intensify the predisposition toward sudden, random, unpredictable violence and the capacity for inflicting it which characterize the present-day pit bull.

you people are idiots !!! I hope karma bites you in the ass !!! Your fake sites take you back to your fake site and your so called evidence is bullshit,… made up bullshit………. stop ripping off people and BAN BSL !!!!

ACTUALLY RESEARCH THE STATS FOR YOURSELF. How many other dogs bite and attack humans? Stats show that the numbers are completely comparable. Whoever wrote this article is ignorant and quite frankly, should be the one euthanized.

In point of fact, we have researched the stats for ourselves, for more than 34 years now. Our findings are easily accessible at Pit bull statistics. How many other dogs inflict fatal or disfiguring injuries on humans? Since September 1982, within the U.S. and Canada, 6,925 dogs have participated in attacks on 5,823 humans in which one or more humans were killed or disfigured. Of those dogs, 4,811 were pit bulls: 70%, by a dog type making up less than 5% of the total dog population. Dog attacks have killed 654 people, of whom 363 (55%) were killed by pit bulls, and have disfigured 4,251 people, of whom 3,130 (74%) were disfigured by pit bulls.

Once again another well written article that confirms, the only thing more insane than promoting and advocating for pit bulls, would be standing by idly and quietly letting it happen. Thank you for leading the movement toward sane people owning safe dogs. Also known as Mans Best Friend.

It is going to be a long haul to get laws controlling pit bull owners enacted, but it is something we will continue to work on. After many years, I’m starting to see more public awareness on this topic, and in the next few years, I hope we can have more comprehensive laws banning unsafe dogs in our communities. There is no need for anyone to own a breed of dog that kills at the rate of pit bulls.